Picture courtesy : Keanu Dölle via Wikimedia Commons

A 3D printing slicer is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of the whole process of 3D printing. It takes your digital 3D models and gets them ready for the last step of printing. It is the slicer that affects (to an extent) how well your components print, how strong they are, and how they look.

With so many 3D printing slicers to choose from, you're virtually spoiled for choice. Knowing which one to use and which one is better for your 3D projects may have a big effect on how your 3D-printed items turn out.

In this post, we've done the research for you and put together a full guide to the finest 3D printer slicer software on the market. We'll look at their characteristics, strengths, and flaws to see what makes them different.

Read on to find out all you need to know about 3D printing slicers and select the appropriate one for you!

Picture courtesy: CobaltEchos via Reddit

PolyEthylene Terephthalate Glycol, or PETG, is like the middle sibling in 3D printing. It gives you the strength of ABS while being as easy to print as PLA. PETG is known for its excellent impact resistance and toughness and is a great material for printing functional parts.

In this article, we'll look at everything there is to know about this material. We'll understand what exactly PETG is, what are its advantages and drawbacks and how to optimize your print settings for the best print quality with this material.

So bottle up your designs and get ready to print them with PETG.

Image Courtesy - Marco Verch via Flickr

PLA, or polylactic acid, is a popular and commonly used 3D printing polymer. It's likely to be among the first materials you try with your 3D printers. It is easy to print, cheap, and comes in many different types for many different uses.

There are still a lot of questions about PLA material on various community forums. How do you print it? What is the best printing temperature? Slicing options? These are just a handful of the many queries that consumers have about the PLA filament.

This article aims to answer these questions for good. We'll delve deep into the world of PLA filament in this post and learn everything there is to know about it. By the end, you'll have answers to all of your PLA questions and feel confident in printing it.

Continue reading to improve your PLA skills and 3D print some high-quality models. Let's get started!

Required files/software​

The following files (also linked throughout the document) are required.

• Celestrius Pilot V1 3D Models
• Celestrius data collection program for Klipper

This guide assumes you already have a nozzle camera installed on your 3D printer and connected to OctoPrint. If you have not installed a nozzle camera yet, follow the guide for Prusa Mini/Mini+ or Voron 2.4/Trident with Stealthburner :::

Required files/software​

The following files (also linked throughout the document) are required.

• Celestrius Pilot V1 3D Models
• Celestrius Plugin for OctoPrint

Celestrius is an AI model that uses a simple nozzle camera instead of a LiDAR to tackle a slew of notorious 1st-layer issues: under/over extrusion, bed adhesion problem, wrong z-offset, you name it.

What is Celestrius?​

One of the innovations by Bambu Lab's X1 is a LiDAR that watches the 1st-layer for potential print issues.

On one hand, the Obico team is excited to see a new, innovative solution promised to address the issues that cause endless headaches to even the most-experienced 3D printing enthusiasts.

On the other hand, we don't believe LiDAR is an optimal choice for this task. The reasons are:

• LiDARs are proprietary, expensive, and hard to source. This is a walled-garden solution that isn't aligned with the maker ethos deeply rooted in the 3D printing community.

• AI technologies centered around cameras are advancing at a much faster pace than those for LiDARs.

• LiDARs are for robots only. Cameras are for both robots and humans. Who doesn't enjoy watching a jaw-dropping video like this?

That's why the Obico team started project Celestrius - an AI model that will be a lot smarter than our current one simply thanks to the nitty-gritty detail a nozzle camera can reveal.

Well, this is the hope at least. In reality, we are not there yet because this project is damn hard! After tens of failed experiments, hundreds of print hours to collect data, and thousands of cups of coffee (Ok, may not be that much coffee. But you get the point), we now need your participation to push this project over the finish line.

And this is why we have now opened a limited pilot for project Celestrius.

This guide will walk you through installing the 3DO 4K nozzle camera on your Voron 2.4 3D printer with a Stealth Burner tool head.

Required Hardware:​

1. Voron 2.4 with Stealthburner
2. 3DO 4K nozzle camera kit (distributed by 3DO for EU and KB3D or Fabreeko for U.S.)

• The kit includes
  • 4K Camera
  • 2*10mm SHCS screws (for PCB mounting) -4x
  • 5050 SK6812 WWCW 6000K LED - 2x
  • 1x High-quality high-temperature USB cable (FEP + Silicone)

This guide has been adapted from and inspired by Ananord’s guide on Instructables and Chilicoke’s Nozzle Camera Youtube guide in addition to other work from the community.

This guide will show you how to install an endoscope camera on your Prusa Mini 3D printer. This setup will assume you already have your Prusa mini connected to OctoPrint running on a Raspberry Pi.

Required Components:

1. 5.5mm USB-C Endoscope Camera from Amazon or similar

2. Reinforced or Standard 3D printed mount for Prusa Mini/Mini+ by Scorrigan87 - (remix of the original mount by Shadow703793)

3. M4 x 20 socket head cap screw (or similar) and M4 Nut

4. Permanent marker

The PrusaSlicer is quickly becoming one of the most popular slicers in the community. It is now one of the top 3D printing slicers due to its simple interface, lightweight design, and boatload of sophisticated capabilities.

The last PrusaSlicer 2.5 update added new features like the Lighting Infill and Arachne Perimeter Generator, to name a few. These were wonderful additions that were positively accepted by users.

The latest version, PrusaSlicer 2.6, kicks things up a level by including a slew of long-awaited features.

Read on to find out about its new features and how you can "support" your 3D prints in a better way with this upgrade.

What’s new in PrusaSlicer 2.6?​

PrusaSlicer's 2.6 alpha 2 version was released a few days ago. The PrusaSlicer 2.6 is now available to the public for the first time (alpha 1 was only tested internally).This was the first time that people in the 3D printing community could use 2.6's new features. Let's take a closer look at them.

Photo Courtesy : 3D Printing Geek via Reddit

Klipper is an advanced 3D printing firmware that gives you a high level of control over how your 3D printer moves. One key part of this control is the measurement and management of your stepper motor's motion. Klipper does this with the help of the Rotation Distance parameter.

Rotation Distance measures how far your print head moves in a single rotation.This value has an impact on the dimensional accuracy and appearance of your prints. and, in turn, is a key factor in determining the final quality of your 3D models.

In this article, we'll talk about what the rotation distance means in Klipper and how you can use it to get the best prints possible. We'll talk about it in detail and go over the steps for setting up the rotation distance for your 3D printer.

Read on to learn how to 3D print highly accurate parts and take your printing to the next level.